A joyful meandering that wound up being about driveway hockey.
i had just gotten up today, and gone to the bathroom for a solid B.M. the bathroom window was open, and outside it sit the garbage/yard waste/recycle bins. all of a sudden i hear someone walk up alongside our garage, and open up one of the bins. i had finished at this point, and was blowing my nose for good measure. so, the person getting into our recycling heard me and said, "oh, hey, just dropping off some cereal boxes and milk cartons." i recognized Valerie's (the neighbor) voice, and said, "yeah, have at it. the trash is kinda full, though." it was just a very odd way to start my day off.

in other news: happy september! the weather's gorgeous, and the air smells crisp and clean.

:: sorry, neighbor came over to smoke a ciggy ::

what was i saying? eh, whatever.

i should play disc golf again. i made it out there quite a bit the first half of summer, but i haven't played in several weeks. I guess it has been overtaken by driveway hockey, which is honestly a better workout, but you really pay for the next day.

it's actually a lot of fun. we have a net that bruce built, and they spray painted a crease to go in front of it. the garage door is about 2 feet behind the net, so there is some playable space back there, just like the real deal. The rest of the rink is surrounded by short wooden boards to hold the puck in. the rules have been adapted - obviously - to suit our needs, and there's a continual evolution there, but the gameplay itself remains pretty much the same. we have three offensive players (a center and two wingers), a defenseman, and a goalie. the three offense and the defender will rotate positions after every goal. goalies rotate every 30 minutes (the mishmash of homemade pads takes a while to put on). it's like a full-time 3-on-1 rush, but since we suck so bad, sometimes it's still tough to get a puck to drop. even still, if you pepper 'im long enough, something's bound to go through eventually.

here are the basic rules:
> no high sticking (we're out there in our tennis shoes for pete's sake. we don't want to cart anyone to the hospital)
> no cross-checking (same reason)
> no slapshots (or we'll have to listen to the goalies bitch. loudly.)
> the center has to pass before anyone can shoot
> if the puck goes over the boards and out of play, it counts as "clearing the defensive zone," and the offensive players must go back to their start positions (marked with chalk)
> if any of the offensive players are not in their start positions when the center starts the puck, the play is "offside" and must be reset.
> if a defenseman clears the puck over (or through) the fence and into the neighbor's yard, it's a two-minute minor penalty. since the power play has yet to fail, it's pretty much a death knell. although, bruce once killed off 1:56 of the penalty before they scored on him. that's the current record to beat.

they typically like having new people try it out. kevin and masa joined in this past sunday, and i think they had a good time. so hit me up if you're interested. there's no set day that we do it, so it's kinda random. we usually play from mid-afternoon 'til dark.

3 stars caught | Catch a Star